20th Anniversary – the “Irresistivertible”

I’ve just been reading over at Autochannel how Saab will be using the upcoming Greater Los Angeles Auto Show early next year to launch not only the 9-5 Biopower "concept" for the US, but will also unveil a 20th Anniversary version of it’s greatest success – the Convertible.

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Can’t wait to see this new blue. If it’s anything like the Viggen blue, it’ll be fantastic.

Seems to me there have always been a few stand-out “signature” colors for Saabs – colors you just didn’t see on other cars, like the burnt orange that was on some of the NG900s, or the pale yellows of the earlier Saabs.

They dropped the ball on the launch color for the 9-3 convertible a couple of years ago – that lime green they used in the ads just wasn’t appealing. Hopefully this will mark their redemption.

Anyway… Good news from Europe as a whole. Registered vehicles in November was down 2.8% in November, but Saab was up 9.9%.

For the whole year (Jan – Nov), the market is down 0.5%, GM is down 0.7%, and Saab is down 0.5%. Better than average, despite lack of models and bad press about engine trouble (January) and SDI trouble (September).

Ford (all brands) is down 3.3%, Volvo is down 1.5%. Audi is down 3.3%, BMW up 9.5% and Mercedes is up 3.1%. I think these numbers are for the whole year, although the news item isn’t clear on that.

THe pics of the 9-3ss 2.0t bipower were shown with the presentation of the 9-5 Biopower. They announced that are preparing a version of the L850 engine and also a version of the 2.3T Aero engine, that will have 260-300bhp.

I saw the “Electric Blue” convertible here in Trollhättan yesterday (or was it monday…) and it’s beautiful, in my humble opinion. My immediate thought was that I wanted one.
I only got a glimpse of it for a couple of seconds but it was a brighter/lighter blue than the Viggen blue.

These things are all fine and good, but they’re no classic 900 convertible. I’m starting to warm up to the idea of the 9-3 combisport. Let’s see… if I sell the c900, I’d be only $30,000 short. Maybe I could get a paper route…